“Well,” he says with a shrug, nudging one of the plates into my hands, “extremes make life interesting.” His grin fades for the briefest moment as he searches my face. “Are you all right? You look… pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just tired.”
He doesn’t believe me, not entirely, but he lets it pass. Liam has always been excellent at granting me the dignity ofmy discomforts without demanding explanations I am not ready to give.
“Come on,” he says, hooking his arm through mine with a brotherly tug. “Since I brought your supper, I declare payment due. We are going to my quarters first. I want to see everything.”
“I hardly think my presence is required for you to marvel at furniture,” I say, though the protest lacks conviction as he pulls me along the corridor.
“You underestimate my need to have an audience,” he retorts with a smirk. “Also, there’s carpet in there thicker than anything in our old house. Carpet. You could sleep on it.”
He is exaggerating, surely. Yet Liam remains practically buoyant, thrilled by everything the academy offers, recounting details from the dining hall, describing the endless assortment of dishes, offering bits of gossip he overheard from other Vespera students. His exuberance should be comforting, should steady the strange churn in my chest, but the echo of Sebastian’s voice keeps slipping beneath my thoughts, like a whisper beneath the surface of water.
Girls with eyes like yours…
I force the memory back as we enter the Vespera wing again. Liam is right about the carpets, they are thick and dark, embroidered with deep crimson threading that shimmers faintly beneath the lantern light. His quarters are not far from mine; the corridor curves around the perimeter of the wing, and each chamber door bears the Vespera crest carved in polished blackwood.
“Look!” he announces, swinging open the door with far more flair than necessary. “A bed big enough to drown in, a desk carved with real vinework, and, Harper, there’s a fireplace. A fireplace.”
I attempt a smile for him, though my nerves coil tighterwith each step inside. Something about the wing feels different now that I return to it, not quite sinister, but aware, as if the air itself remembers the conversation whispered in its halls.
Liam, oblivious to my tension, walks from corner to corner with delighted commentary. “And the window, have you seen the view? You can see the entire eastern quad from here. And, Harper, wait, come look at this wardrobe.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” I say softly, setting my untouched plate on his desk as the room presses in with too much warmth, too much expectation, too many shadows that remind me of the one Sebastian had leaned against.
He glances back at me, brows pulling together. “You’re certain you’re well?”
I nod, again, falsely, and he gives me another moment of his steady, searching gaze before letting the matter drop. Liam has a talent for knowing when a question’s answer will not soothe.
“Fine,” he decides. “If you’re not going to admire my unnecessarily extravagant furniture, then we’re going to the common area. You can owe me your awe there instead.”
He loops his arm through mine once more and pulls me back into the corridor, his excitement filling the space with something bright. I cling to it, silently grateful for its simplicity. As we walk, lantern light flickers across the painted portraits lining the walls, their distant ancestors watching every movement, every breath.
The Vespera common area lies at the heart of the wing, accessible through an archway framed by carved stone serpents. The moment we step inside, the room opens into a wide chamber warmed by a grand fireplace whose flames flicker with crimson enchantment. Velvet sofas and high-backed chairs are arranged in small conversational clusters. Tapestries stretch along the walls, depicting scenes ofancient battles and magical rites performed by Vespera’s founders.
It is beautiful. And imposing. And, in a way I cannot shake, expectant.
Liam spins slowly on his heel, taking in the chamber with wide-eyed awe. “All right,” he declares with a grin, “I think I could live here. Forever.”
His voice seems to echo faintly beneath the vaulted ceiling, soft but sure.
I try to match his enthusiasm, but the quiet unease from earlier slips around my throat once more, cool and persistent. No one else is present, most are still lingering over their suppers, but the room feels anything but empty.
It feels watched. Held. Not by a person, perhaps, but by the house itself.
Before Liam can launch into another breathless catalog of everything he intends to explore in the common chamber, a quiet voice drifts from the far side of the room, uncertain, soft, and laced with the faintest tremble.
“Are you one of the new students?”
Both Liam and I turn.
A blonde boy stands several paces away, his wand lifted slightly before him. The tip emits a steady sphere of white light that illuminates the space around him in a soft halo. His eyes are unfocused, their pale blue irises wavering from side to side as though searching the room without truly locking onto anything. He steps forward with careful, practiced movements, and it takes me only a moment to understand that he isn’t merely scanning the room, he is trying to find us through sound, not sight.
His face is strikingly pretty in its delicacy, almost ethereal, but it is the distant quality in his expression that tugs at my memory. Something about him seems strangely familiar, though I am certain we have never met.
“Yes, actually,” Liam says, recovering first. He moves forward with the radiant politeness he reserves for new acquaintances. “My name is Liam, and this is my sister, Harper.”
The boy smiles faintly, but his gaze does not meet ours. Instead, his attention hovers somewhere just past Liam’s shoulder, guided more by sound than sight.
